I've been a fan of the civilization series since II. However I haven't played all of them due to being busy at different points in my life. Didn't play VI for example, but I did enjoy V, some of the DLC for it was good IIRC.
I'm concerned about the pre-order push, and that there is going to be a Switch version. But it does look like it could be good? No way I'm pre-ordering, but would like something to look forward to.
Civ is one of the most famous examples throughout gaming history of "difficulty levels just gives free resources to the AI." Its always been basically lobotomized and retarded, and was playing a completely different game than you were that just traveled along the roughly same path.
Its very much a game meant to be played with real people, but its also impossible to get that many people together for that long.
They really should make a single player focused Civ game, but I have zero expectations that they would be able to do it well. An indie developer might be able to pull it off though.